Lepechinia fragrans (Greene) Epling, FRAGRANT PITCHER SAGE. , drought- deciduous to semi-evergreen, much-branched, 100–200 cm tall; shoots velveteen, whitish tomentose with soft, long, branched (dentritic) hairs, shorter unbranched hairs, and small, sessile glandular hairs, strongly aromatic. Stems: young stems 4-sided (± square in ×- section), rounded on edges, ca. 5 mm diameter, green; older branches with orange-brown bark. : opposite decussate, simple, petiolate, without stipules; 10–30 mm long; blade deltate or ovate to heart-shaped or with spreading basal lobes (hastate), 55–140 × 30–90 mm, typically truncate at base, dentate on margins, acute at tip, pinnately veined with veins raised on lower surface, soft and velvety texture or feeling sticky to clammy. Inflorescence: leafy , terminal and axillary, 10+-flowered, lacking verticils, bracteate; bractlet subtending pedicel leaflike, triangular to heart-shaped, 11–75 × 6–40 mm, sessile; pedicel slender, 11–35 mm long, bearing stalked glandular hairs and dendritic hairs. : bisexual, bilateral, ± 10 mm across; calyx 5-lobed, inflated at the base, light green; tube 7.5–13 mm long, with long dendritic hairs and short, capitate glandular hairs, internally glabrous; lobes subequal, triangular-lanceolate, 10–18 × 3.5–6 mm, at least as long as calyx tube and sometimes extending to near the end of corolla tube, lobes 3-veined, with dendritic hairs on both surfaces but internally sparser; corolla 5-lobed, 20– 35 mm long, very pale lavender to white with faint lavender markings on lateral sides, externally with dendritic hairs, hairs the densest on lobes and upper throat to glabrous on lower throat; tube ± 6 mm long, with a dense ring of white hairs concealing nectary and ovary at constriction between tube and throat; throat ca. 20 mm long, expanded, somewhat inflated on lower side, conspicuously ridged on floor; lower lobe liplike, rhombic when flattened, 8–10 × 6–8 mm, notched to entire at tip; other lobes subequal, semicircular, 2.5 × 4 mm; 4, dimorphic, 2 short and 2 longer, the longer pair 10–12 mm long and attached on floor of throat (lower stamens) with 1 on each side but slightly lower than ridge, the shorter pair 3–5 mm long (upper stamens), attached midthroat below upper 2 corolla lobes; filaments strongly curved and positioning anthers against roof of throat, white, glabrous; anthers included, dithecal, 2.5–3 mm long, sacs spreading and rounded across tips, lavender, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen pale lavender; nectary disc beneath ovary, domelike, 2 mm across, white; pistil 1; ovary superior, strongly 4-lobed, lobes spheric, 0.8 mm, 2-chambered, each lobe with 1 ovule; style attached to ovary base at center of ovary lobes (gynobasic), 20–25 mm long, white; stigmas 2, exserted ± 3 mm beyond anther of longer stamens, ca. 1.3 mm long, acute, glabrous. Fruit: nutlets, (1−)4, obovoid, in range 4–4.5 × 3 mm, ± dull dark brown, smooth, glabrous, with thick pericarp; scar slightly oblique, linear-fusiform, 0.4−0.5 mm long, white. Early April−mid-July.

Native. Very aromatic, velveteen shrub of chaparral, riparian woodland, and southern oak woodland in relatively undisturbed regions of the central and western SMM. Although the corolla of fragrans typically is very pale lavender, at certain localities the are essentially white. B. A. Prigge & A. C. Gibson